Why performance stats are crucial for player development in soccer

The DashTag soccer stats explained

We get it. You coach to improve your soccer players and create a better team. Good news, that’s exactly why we started DashTag, to help every player and every team reach new heights. This blog explains the numbers, how our soccer tracker measures them, and what they mean. So you can use them to improve performance.

We’re not talking about passing, % of ball possession, or scoring statistics here. It’s about understanding physical ability — the foundation for every great player. The Dash is a no-hassle device that clips easily to the shorts, and for the first time, lets you measure exactly how players move on the field.

But numbers don’t mean much their own. So we’ve broken the data down into three easy-to-understand layers in the Dash Stats app: The Powerline provides performance at a glance, The DashStats are 5 key statistics that rate the session, and the Highlights, 10 stats that let you dive deep on where to improve. They’re easy to understand and perfect for players and coaches to share and compare — these are the same statistics professional players use too.

Powerline, DashStats and Highlights

This clear, objective picture of performance is designed to help you celebrate players’ best moments, and pinpoint where to improve.

The Powerline provides an immediate, visual display of highs and lows in a match or session. The higher the peak, the more sprints in that period.

The DashStats numbers grades activity in four metrics critical for soccer performance. Each one is displayed on a scale of 0–99.

PACE: This indicates sprint speed and acceleration of a player. It is calculated by measuring speed over a distance. It matters for how quickly you can outrun an opponent, or create a winning opportunity.

POWER: This measures energy efficiency It calculates how much steps a player uses to reach maximum sprint speed. Tracking this number is useful because getting to the ball first matters.

ENDURANCE: This is stamina. How long before players lose their speed during a game? This attribute can also help measure recovery between matches.

INTENSITY: You need to know how hard your players are working. Intensity measures energy consumption throughout a match. It’s a useful tool for understanding the body and building training and nutrition programs.

And finally, the Session Highlights help you understand peak moments, and identify weak points — so you and your coach can improve your game.

These highlights show you the keys to the stat scores, and reveal to make gains. You’ll be amazed by how insightful this is! For example, how different are a player’s high and low-intensity sprints? What was the difference between the first and last sprint in a game? These figures can quickly help identify critical areas for improvement during training.

First high-intensity sprint and Last high-intensity sprint: how do bursts of speed early and late in the game compare?

Peak speed and Longest sprint: Is explosive speed to create space critical? What about covering your third, or stretching the play?

The point in a session at which 80 percent of sprints completed and 100 percent of sprints completed: how consistent are players working? How evenly-spread are sprints throughout a match?

The point at which you covered 50 percent of your total distance: Everyone loves to get straight into a game, but pacing matters — 80% of World Cup matches in Russia were decided in the last 10 minutes!

Most powerful minute, most powerful 10 minutes and longest low activity period: These figures show you exactly how players respond to changes in match dynamics and tempo. Coaches looking for an extra layer of analysis could group active and inactive players together to track team performance at critical points in a game.

What is the science behind this?

Soccer is an explosive sport, where nothing is more important than speed, acceleration and deceleration. Numerous studies analyzing players’ performance agree that the most decisive moments in soccer matches are short bursts of maximal intensity. The DashTag app is built with this in mind — to show you exactly what players’ highs and lows look like.

The DashTag measures your movement against standards commonly used by sports scientists: If you’re covering between 4–5 meters in a second, that’s running. Running becomes a sprint when you cover between 5–6.5 meters a second. Running above 6.5 meters a second is a high-intensity sprint.

A weekly overview for the coach: a 30-day trial period

At DashTag we wanted to give every soccer player access to data-driven improvement. So, we spent a lot of time speaking with players and coaches at all levels, to understand what was most important to you.

We know there are other, far more expensive and complex products out there, but we’ve developed the Dash to be different — uncomplicated, easy-to-use and player-centric: a tool to bring performance tracking within reach of every aspiring player.

Most importantly, we wanted to make the data understandable, so you can actually use it as a tool to train and play better — whether that means helping your team defeat an arch-rival, or spurring a star towards that college scholarship!

And coaches, especially for you, we’ve created an easy way to see how all your players are performing at once — you can opt to receive a weekly email with all their data at your fingertips.

If you’re interested in seeing what the DashTag can do for your team’s performance, please sign up here for our 30 day trial period!